JanRain lands venture round, plans hiring and a move downtown

JanRain's Brian KisselLong-incubating Portland startup JanRain announced $3.25 million in Series A venture backing this morning, coupled with immediate growth plans. The money comes from DFJ Frontier, which led the round, RPM Ventures and Anthem Venture Partners.

With its cash infusion, the company plans to accelerate product development and marketing.

Talked to CEO Brian Kissel on Friday, who said he envisions JanRain's Portland work force -- which now numbers a dozen -- doubling next year. And the company plans to move from John's Landing to downtown to accommodate the growth and get closer to the hive of Portland's startup scene.

JanRain is four years old, and has been looking for venture backing almost that long. The company deploys OpenID technology, a standardized format for logging in to various sites across the Web.

OpenID has evolved in fits and starts, and so has JanRain.

The company, once headed by Silicon Forest wayfarer Scott Kveton, experimented with various ways to monetize OpenID. In the last year, though, JanRain has settled on a direction as OpenID broke out of a niche and became a common standard that permits one site to recognize visitors from another.

JanRain's tools are mechanisms to make that cross pollination work.

"We're reaching the stage where we feel there is an inflection in the market happening, and we feel like we're really in the pole position," Brian said.

OpenID is employed by many of the Web's name brands, including Google, Yahoo and Facebook. JanRain's clients include Fox News, Kmart, Sears and PayPal.

Web surfers enjoy the convenience of being able to use the same login -- and online identity -- on multiple sites. And, Brian explained, businesses like having a clear idea of who's visiting their site.

"They want to do more with their Web sites," he said. "If you actually want to engage with your customer, an anonymous visitor doesn't quite do it."

Up 'til now, JanRain's been sustained by some early angel investment and revenue from services it provided within the OpenID community. Now, it's targeting a broader market.

In conjunction with today's funding, which was hinted at in August, DFJ's David Cremin will join JanRain's board along with RPM's Tony Grover and Anthem's Samit Varma.

Today's funding is the second venture round for a Portland open source company this year. Reductive Labs moved to town in June, bringing with it $2 million in venture backing.